Australia is taking in more than 1,500 people a day as immigration rises and birth rates fall amid a crisis in housing affordability and the cost of living.
A record 454,400 net migrants moved to Australia in the year to March, bringing the population to 26.5 million.
The influx of international students and skilled migrants saw Australia take in more foreigners than it did in 2008 during the mining boom.
Overseas immigration represented 80.7 percent of Australia’s population growth, with a total of 563,200 new arrivals, including the country’s net birth rate of 108,800.
That amounted to 1,543 new people per day in a country already struggling with a rental crisis, unaffordable housing and high inflation.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that before departures were taken into account, 681,000 migrants arrived during the year, representing a 103 per cent increase in permanent and long-term overseas inflows.
Australia is taking in more than 1,500 people a day as immigration rises and birth rates fall amid an affordability and cost of living crisis (pictured crowds at Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall)
The number of people moving abroad permanently increased by 8.8 percent to 226,600.
The cost of living crisis also coincided with an 18.5 percent drop in the net birth rate to 108,800.
This number, known as the natural increase, was based on 301,200 births, which fell by 3.4 percent, minus 192,300 deaths – an increase of 7.9 percent.
‘Mortality from Covid-19 continued to contribute to a higher number of deaths,” the ABS said.
The quarterly data also showed NSW took in 153,419 new overseas migrants last year, ahead of Victoria’s 137,845.
Before permanent departures abroad were taken into account, Australia’s two largest states housed 42.7 percent of immigrants.
But New South Wales, home to Australia’s most expensive capital Sydney, is also losing residents to other states, with 117,492 leaving for another part of Australia, compared to 87,279 who moved there from interstate.
This meant NSW experienced a population growth of 1.9 per cent, which was lower than the national average increase of 2.2 per cent.
Australia’s immigration-driven population growth is among the highest in the developed world, behind only Canada and Singapore.
Sustainable Population Australia president Jenny Goldie said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was ignoring pleas to reduce immigration.
“Under the Albanian government, immigration has increased beyond all proportion,” she said.
‘Mr Albanese knows very well that voters want a much lower level of migration.
‘He and his ministers continue to deter them with absurd and contradictory lies that this overwhelming immigration is “not government policy”, or is “just catching up on Covid”, or “leads to slower population growth”.’
A Guardian Essential poll of 1,138 people published in May found that 59 percent of respondents were in favor of an immigration cap ‘until we have enough affordable housing’.
Immigration accounted for 80.7 percent of Australia’s population growth with 563,200 new arrivals, including the net birth rate of 108,800. That equated to 1,543 new people per day in a country already struggling with a rental crisis, unaffordable housing and high inflation (pictured is a row of rental properties in Bondi)
Treasurer Jim Chalmers told the ABC Q&A program in May that the government had no direct control over net overseas migration.
‘That is not a government policy or a government objective,” he said.
‘It’s not a floor or a ceiling, it’s not something the government determines.’
Dr. Chalmers told Sky News business editor Ross Greenwood in August that net immigration abroad was soaring as fewer people left to live and work abroad.
“Fewer Australians are leaving to work overseas and so that’s the temporary driver of the numbers and it’s largely a recovery from what we saw during Covid,” he said.
However, the resource-rich states with the highest population growth are receiving more residents through interstate migration.
Western Australia had the highest population growth of 2.8 per cent in a state where Perth’s median house price of $634,169 is more affordable than the other state capitals.
This stated it ahead of Queensland at 2.3 per cent, where people from Sydney and Melbourne moved because of the Gold Coast’s warmer climate.
Victoria’s population grew by 2.4 per cent, in a state hosting an influx of new migrants into Melbourne.
The reopening of the Australian border in December 2021 and the end of Covid lockdowns have led to a slowdown in population growth in the provincial states.
South Australia’s population grew by 1.6 percent, compared to just 0.4 percent in Tasmania, 0.9 percent in the Northern Territory and 2 percent in the Australian Capital Territory.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said in May that the ABC’s Q&A program had no direct control over net overseas migration